A moment later, she straightened her posture after leaning toward me.
“Looking at your current skin condition alone, I don’t see any lesions that need treatment. Have you been regularly receiving laser treatments or dermatological procedures?”
“No. This is my first visit today.”
“Then do you usually have itching or rashes on areas where your arms or knees bend?”
“No.”
“Are you uncomfortable in the evening because of your skin?”
“No.”
“When it’s ambiguous, we could do allergy or fungal tests, but….”
The doctor pondered for a moment as if choosing her words.
“Without even going to additional tests, I don’t observe any active acne or atopic dermatitis findings on your skin right now.”
“But definitely in the past….”
“When you’re young, the immune system isn’t stabilized yet, so atopic symptoms often appear due to environmental changes or constitution, but it’s also common for them to naturally improve or disappear as you become an adult.”
She lightly pointed toward my cheek.
“And this area you mentioned is normal skin texture and pores rather than scars. It’s a structure everyone with human skin has, so it’s hard to see it as a pathological condition.”
“Then in your opinion, am I normal?”
The doctor looked directly into my wavering eyes and nodded.
“You’re normal.”
“……”
That can’t be. Dad always said my skin was disgusting. There were many times he hit me because looking at my face made him lose his appetite. He told me never to acknowledge him outside because it was embarrassing.
At school too, my nickname naturally became Pockmark, and there was even a kid who annoyingly followed me around calling me monster and mold. Even adults were uncomfortable talking to me face-to-face.
Very young children often burst into tears when they saw my face. That child, Kwon Yujin, was one of them too. He was even scared of me.
The memories from that time are this vivid, yet I’m normal? The acne disappeared after secondary sex characteristics ended, but in my eyes there were still several problems. Besides, the rash could come back anytime. Yet there’s no treatment that can be done.
While I was secretly relieved by the doctor’s opinion, doubts didn’t completely disappear and remained faintly.
Having left the dermatologist without much gain, I stood in front of the subway station for a moment, lost in thought amidst the rushing confusion. Generally, not having an illness is a good sign. But that doesn’t mean my face still doesn’t cause discomfort to someone.
‘If you can’t believe it that much, go out to the subway or Hongdae or somewhere and try getting someone’s number. That’ll prove it, right?’
Suddenly, what Park Seongwoo said a while ago flashed like some kind of revelation. Why had I forgotten that? There would be no more certain method than asking people for their contact information.
If I really don’t provoke strong disgust, when I ask ten people, wouldn’t at least one person give me their number?
Having thought that far, I decided to put it into action right away. While searching for targets, just then in the corridor leading to the subway transfer area, I saw a woman and man having an argument.
“Ahjussi stepped on my foot first!”
“So what? What do you want me to do about it? When there are lots of people, you might not see them.”
“If you dirtied my white shoes like this, you should at least apologize.”
“Why don’t you open your eyes properly and walk around? Some pathetic thing, damn it.”
“What, what did you just say?”
I approached the arguing man and woman. Somehow I saw my dad’s figure in the man and couldn’t just pass by.
After hesitating a bit from behind, I inserted myself between the two people.
“Excuse me, Ahjussi. Please apologize first and go on your way.”
“What are you?”
“If you stepped on someone’s foot while passing, you should say sorry.”
“Who are you to butt into other people’s business? Fuck, are you two even acquainted?”
“Please don’t curse.”
“Ah, today’s unlucky from the start. All these strange things, huh? Kh!”
The middle-aged man raised his hand and made a motion as if to hit.
If I had been younger, I might have been scared due to my fear of Dad, but I’d encountered countless people of this type since entering society. And they just had loud voices but were mostly insignificant. There was no way they could match the strength of someone like me who worked going from construction site to construction site.
I knew the other person wouldn’t use violence, but I deliberately grabbed his arm.
“What are you doing? Let go of this?”
“Please apologize.”
“Let go, you bastard!”
The man struggled desperately to pull his arm out, but since I was gripping it harder, he couldn’t move as he pleased. When things didn’t go his way, he tried to push me away using his entire body. Watching that, I grabbed the man harder and warned him.
“Please apologize.”
“Ah! It hurts, agh. Miss, stop him a bit. Huh?”
“……”
“…S-sorry. Let go first and let’s talk. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
I looked at the woman with the meaning of asking if she was okay. The flustered woman opened her eyes wide and alternated gazing between me and the man.
“Miss! I said I’m sorry! Huh?”
“N-next time, please be careful.”
Only after the woman accepted the apology did I release the force from my hand. The ahjussi, whose face had turned bright red, seemed conscious of the people around him as he brushed off his clothes and quickly disappeared into the crowd.
“Um, thank you for helping me.”
I nodded my head roughly, then stopped as I was about to pass by saying it was okay.
The thought that I should ask this woman for her number according to my original purpose flashed through my mind.
Since I helped someone in a difficult situation, wouldn’t she have more favorable feelings when I asked for her number?
Now is the best timing. I gathered courage and lowered my mask below my chin.
“Excuse me. Then could you possibly give me your contact information?”
“…What? Me?”
“Yes. Would that not be okay?”
“It’s not that it wouldn’t be okay….”
Does ‘it’s not that it wouldn’t be okay’ mean acceptance? My mouth went dry from tension.
“Do you have Instagram?”
The woman asked me a question completely unrelated to the phone number. She was deflecting. This is clearly… a rejection, I guess.
“I don’t have anything like that.”
I was about to turn around without any thought of clinging pathetically, when an unexpected answer came back.
“Then give me your phone. I’ll input my number.”
The woman, who had been glancing at my face, took my phone from me. And she really started to input her number. While still continuously glancing at me.
“Thank you for helping me. I pretended otherwise, but… I was scared when that ahjussi raised his voice earlier.”
“It’s fine.”
The more the woman openly observed my face, the more embarrassment rushed in, so I pulled my mask back up.
“Here, my number.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you so much today. Then please contact me.”
“Wait a moment.”
Unable to believe the fact that the woman had so readily given me her number, I called the number she’d input. Then the phone in the woman’s hand started vibrating. My number was displayed on the screen.
The woman had given me her real number. Something unbelievable had happened.
Even after sending her off, I grabbed other people and asked for their numbers again. Because I approached too clumsily, everyone seemed surprised at first, but when I showed my face and politely asked for their contact information, they all readily said they would. Like the first woman I met, there were also people who were curious whether I had something called Instagram.
Women have gentle personalities and good social skills, so maybe they gave it reluctantly? With that suspicion, I approached a few more people, choosing only men who looked as alpha as possible, and they all gave me their contact information too. Among them, there were even people who added that I should definitely contact them.
Only then did it feel real. That my face had escaped to some degree from the state of being nauseating. I looked with satisfaction at the new contact information accumulated on my phone.
That didn’t make going around without a mask comfortable, but I felt the obsession that had been weighing me down lighten considerably.
***
Saturday. The day of meeting Kwon Yujin had inevitably returned.
The confidence I’d barely gained went somewhere, and when the morning of the day arrived, I became withdrawn as usual. It’s difficult even for me to look at my own face with my own eyes, yet I have to show it to Kwon Yujin. Of all people, why him?
Before leaving for Kwon Yujin’s house, in the end I couldn’t overcome the tension and anxiety and reached for alcohol.
